US immigration officials carried out further “enforcement activity” in California’s agricultural heartland and the Los Angeles area as the conflict between the state and Donald Trump’s administration intensified on Wednesday.
Immigrant advocacy groups reported multiple actions across the state, where an estimated 255,700 farm workers are undocumented, and said agents pursued workers through blueberry fields and staged operations at agricultural facilities.
The raids have been sharply criticized by advocacy groups and local officials, who said they were “outraged and heartbroken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) activities targeting immigrant families”.
“When our workforce’s lives are in fear, the fields will go unharvested, the impact is felt not only at the local level, but it will also be felt at the national level,” said Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios, the mayor of Ventura, a coastal city just north of Los Angeles. “Everything will be affected and every American who is here and relies on the labor of these individuals will be affected.”
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